WHITE SOX FANS FUEL FLAMES OF PENNANT FEVER

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

The White Sox flew into Midway Airport last night to a heroes' welcome from thousands of pennant-mad fans, still deliriously happy over the four-game sweep in Cleveland. The Sox set off the celebration by sweeping a double-header from the second-place Indians, 6-3, 9-4, giving them a 5 1/2-game lead in the American League.

Al Lopez, the White Sox manager, and his players were prepared for the noisy greeting. In contact with the airport, the plane's crew had been advised that the massive crowd was awaiting the club's arrival.

To avoid a jam, the players were instructed to take their traveling bags after departing, rather than retrieve them inside the airport. But the crowd had swarmed the runway and surrounded the plane almost before it came to a halt and the jam was on.

As each player came into view he was given a vociferous greeting. Jim Rivera, liveliest of the group, appeared with a balloon in his mouth, released the air from it, and clasped his hands over his head like King Levinsky at White City.

A group of fans made a rush for Rivera, bearing him aloft outside the airline waiting room. They carried him to his automobile.

One of the more prominent of several signs proclaimed, "Welcome Home Champs." Another read "Salutos, Amigos, White Sox"-no doubt from the Latin-American contingent which worships at the winged feet of Luis Aparicio.

As Al Smith surveyed the milling crowds in the waiting rooms, sitting on top of the airport buildings, and on roofs of buses, he looked for first baseman Ted Kluszewski, a former football star.

"I want that guy to run interference for me," said the outfielder, who in yesterday's second game hit a home run over right field for the first time in his big-league career.

While the players danced, Lopez was his usual quiet self during the flight home. He sat with newspaper reporters in the forward compartment or "the executive suite" as publicist Ed Short calls it.

Lopez said he had planned to give Kluszewski a rest in the second game.

"But Ted came over to me during the intermission and said he was ready if I wanted him to play," Lopez said. "I told him he was elected."

"Billy Pierce was throwing good today," Lopez said of the southpaw pitcher who has been out for 16 days with a hip injury. Lopez added that Pierce will pitch in batting practice before Tuesday night's game with the Red Sox in Comiskey Park. "Billy may be ready to pitch against the Indians this weekend," Lopez added.

He said it in a matter-of-fact way. The White Sox, remember, swept four games from the Indians without Pierce's help.